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But a refugee at a Minggah or Goomarh runs a great risk of incurring the wrath of the spirits, for Minggah are taboo to all but their own wirreenun. There was a Minggah, a great gaunt Coolabah, near our river garden. Some gilahs build in it every year, but nothing would induce the most avaricious of black bird-collectors to get the young ones from there.
We shall have no food soon; then shall we die, and the Noongahburrah be no more seen on the Narrin. Then why, if he is able, does not Wirreenun inake rain?" Soon these murmurs reached the ears of the old Wirreenun.
Especially was he careful to hide these stones from the women. At the end of the third day Wirreenun said to the young men: "Go you, take your comeboos and cut bark sufficient to make dardurr for all the tribe." The young men did as they were bade.
The men said nothing but looked as frightened. Only Wirreenun was fearless. "I will go out," he said, "and stop the storm from hurting us. The lightning shall come no nearer." So out in front of the dardurrs strode Wirreenun, and naked he stood there facing the storm, singing aloud, as the thunder roared and the lightning flashed, the chant which was to keep it away from the camp
The bodies of dogs, and the heads of pigs, and the fierceness and strength of devils. And gone is the life of a man who meets in a scrub of Noondoo an earmoonan, for surely will it slay him. Not even did Byamee ever dare to go near the breed of his old dog. And Byamee, the mighty Wirreenun, lives for ever. But no man must look upon his face, lest surely will he die.
When the dardurr were finished, having high floors of ant-bed and water-tight roofs of bark, Wirreenun commanded the whole camp to come with him to the waterhole; men, women, and children; all were to come. They all followed him down to the creek, to the waterhole where he had placed the willgoo willgoo and gubberah. Wirreenun jumped into the water and bade the tribe follow him, which they did.
A wirreenun, or, in fact, any one having a yunbeai, has the power to cure any one suffering an injury from whatever that yunbeai is; as, for example, a man whose yunbeai is a black snake can cure a man who is bitten by a black snake, the method being to chant an incantation which makes the yunbeai enter the stricken body and drive out the poison.
He finds out there who the enemy is, and whence he obtained his poison. If a wirreenun is too far away to consult his friendly spirits in person, he can send his Mullee Mullee, or dream spirit, to interview them.
So alone in a thick scrub, on one of the Noondoo ridges, lives this old man, Byamee, the mightiest of Wirreenun. The Bunnyyarl and Wurrunnunnah were relations, and lived in one camp. The Wurrunnunnah were very hardworking, always trying to gather food in a time of plenty, to lay in a store for a time of famine.
Old Byamee, who was a great Wirreenun, said he would take his two sons, Ghindahindahmoee and Boomahoomahnowee, to the gathering of the tribes, for the time had come when they should be made young men, that they might be free to marry wives, eat emu flesh, and learn to be warriors.
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